But on the other hand, an electronic screwdriver can’t so easily uncork a wine bottle, open a letter, pop a bottle top, or file your nails. It’s true that, say, a high-end electronic screwdriver can screw in a bolt much faster than a swiss army knife, for example. In the past I’ve also compared being autistic to being a specialized tool as opposed to a swiss army knife. In the previous blog I referred to the quote of “different not less” and how I originally did not like the statement, but upon further reflection came to accept it. It is undeniable that being autistic comes with certain disadvantages. If the first method, described in the earlier blog, can be summed up as “promoting your strengths,” then self-actualization can be described as “overcoming your weaknesses.”
In the previous blog, I brought it up a few times as “self-actualization.” Self-actualization, or self-improvement, is one of the two great methods of self-advocacy. However, there is another method of advocacy that I only briefly touched upon in the previous blog that I feel needs to be understood in more depth. And I claimed that the absolute best way to advocate is to come at the problem from a position of strength, promoting one’s talents and abilities and showcasing what a boon people with autism can be to the community when they’re allowed to practice their talents, rather than demanding that we be compensated for our own shortcomings.
I observed that, unfortunately, many advocacy groups do this anyway and that we need to take action to curb the damage done by these overzealous “activists” that intend to speak for the rest of us.
I wrote that it is unreasonable to expect the rest of the world to kowtow to our every whim and that screaming and ranting and raving and demanding unreasonable things will only make us maligned in the eyes of the greater population we seek to help us. I asserted that if one is to advocate for themselves, or indeed at all, they need to have a measure of self-awareness allowing them to recognize both their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as the simple fact of reality that people on the spectrum are a tiny minority in the greater population of our world. In an earlier blog of mine titled “ The Complex Relationship between Self-Awareness and Self-Advocacy,” I went into great depth about the relationship between self-awareness and self-advocacy.
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